The Brave Ones, They Stay and Watch it Happen
by justsomeprettylightsinthesky
Summary: Amelia's unicorn baby lives past the first two weeks.
1. one

a/n: Amelia's baby is unnamed, as far as we know. I haven't assigned him one… I wouldn't even know where to start trying to name him. I have never been to the places mentioned, I just looked up events in a relevant timeframe, so mentions should not be construed as recommendations.

"She's the first one who seems genuinely kind, and that's what we want for your son, right? Not like that second old one?" Charlotte makes a face, trying to mimic the stern grouchiness of the woman they'd interviewed who'd told them they needed to toughen up. The impression is slightly dampened by quieted worry.

Amelia lets the corner of her mouth rise slightly. "Yeah, well, okay. Do you want to call her?"

She nods, slightly but significantly, with a little smile. Her words carry the casual weight of a person who does what she says. "I will."

* the interview *

 _The woman on the porch has a good sense of colors, with a well-fitted deep emerald green button-up that suits her luminous brown skin, and a thin ring of a rose-rouge stone set in gold._

 _"Maggie Pierce," she says, gripping the outstretched hand well._

 _"Well, come on in," Charlotte invites good-naturedly. Without so much as a gesture, she treads deeper into the house, beginning to speak._

 _"We need some help caring for him when Amelia needs a break or any type of assistance. She wants to spend every possible moment with her little man, and I have got to move back into my own home, as I have a hospital to run and a husband and a son who are lost without me. We're doing our best to speak to him, to interact with him and play with him, whatever his level of response. We'll talk about pay, but let's introduce you two," Charlotte speaks, ending by transferring the infant in her arms to Maggie's, which wrap and support softly like she's done nothing else with them in her life._

 _"Hi," she whispers with a smile, glancing over unseeing eyes, just touching one little red cheek. "Nice to meet you, little dude." She silently, surprisedly observes how the smallness of his head fits strangely easily onto her forearm, how light it is, how breathtakingly fragile._

 _"Would you like to see the nursery? Well, it's in her room, for obvious reasons, but we can call it a nursery. Crib, changing table, all the parts," she starts, and she leads into a room decorated with dull colors and dark woods, except for the bright, white and pastel objects covering one wall right of the bed._

 _"It's been a little more than a week since the hospital, we're just trying to get some kind of routine underway; Amelia agrees it's probably best for this little guy," Charlotte covers a strange sort of sadness with enthusiasm for the last three words, bringing her hand up as if to nudge his little nose, but gently closing it. "Thank you so much for coming in, I know it's an upsetting situation."_

 _"I can't imagine what this must be like. But I think I can help you through it." Maggie's words from others might be ambitious, or false, but with a humble raise of eyebrows and a tiny nod, these could not be mistaken for anything other than compassionate._

 _"I like you," Charlotte drawls after considering her a moment, dipping her head then raising her chin in assurance. "Fair warning, I don't know if she'll help you cook, she sure didn't help me. Spare bedroom's right down that way. Do you have any questions?"_

 _"Yes, ah, when do I meet Ms. Sheperd?" A joke about preferring to meet roommates ahead of time withers in her mind before she bothers to improve it; this is too unconventional a situation to joke about such a commonplace thing._

 _"Well, how about in a few minutes? She'll be out of the shower soon."_

 _"Oh, of course," Maggie responds awkwardly. The baby squeaks in her arms. As she lifts him slightly, he moves his arms and makes noises._

 _"It's a reflex." Charlotte's voice comes from over her shoulder. "The response."_

 _She nods._

 _Not even a few minutes later, a pale, brown-haired woman emerges from somewhere, eyes locked on the infant, before they snap to the woman holding him._

* the first day *

The place is perhaps a few miles from a beach cliff. It's short, and small and green, with a small front yard filled with tall grasses, succulents and a few feet of concrete walkway. Maggie arrives at 7:50 AM, mentally steeled for an emotionally taxing day. She carries her small suitcase and one duffel bag into the spare room, then asks Amelia to show her around; where things are in the kitchen, where spare paper goods are, what parts of the house might be off-limits and other such things.

She is acutely aware of the strangeness of entering this woman's space, and for such a personal reason, but she finds herself relieved as they chat more and more easily throughout the day, so she starts relaxing slightly into her settings. The home is brightly lit, with the sort of light blue walls she would expect to find in any beachy house, which leads her to think that perhaps Amelia hasn't lived here long. The front door opens into a living room with wide windows to the right that let sunlight pour through and reflect off those light walls. Forward is a small hallway, with just a few things on the walls. The first door, the only right, is the kitchen, with medium woods and room enough for a table. Further down, the second left is a guest room, and the door at the end of the hall is the master, which leaves a bathroom for the first left.

It's a little later that she sees his head for the first time. Maggie knows what anencephaly is. She's studied it. But when Amelia slips the little hat off that little head, she is surprised to feel relief. Despite everything, he is still alive, despite the healing scar on the back of his head where a surgeon must have removed an encephalocele, despite the flat, short top of his head, an obvious clue where he lacks a forebrain, and certainly a cerebrum.

He is blind, almost certainly deaf, and unable to feel pain.

"He'll never gain consciousness." The words, blunt, come soft out of Amelia's mouth. Maggie looks up, floored by the love and acceptance of this fact in her voice, and for a few moments forgets to speak.

She only nods.

Excepting this, they discuss nothing of more consequence than Amelia's preferences for certain routines until after the little one's bedtime. Maggie had observed quietly as Amelia stood silently for a few minutes, watching him sleep. When she'd finally turned around, as though finding herself unexpectedly in real life, she'd asked for help with the dishes. So Maggie found herself following the woman down the short hallway, and in the quiet, quite startled to be asked, "What do you think of him?"

"He's lovely," she just manages to get out in a timely manner, directing her answer toward a pretty brown ponytail and the back neckline of her sweater, since she hasn't turned around. It's a standard compliment for anyone's baby… at risk of sounding insincere in this impossible situation, of sounding false.

"Do you think he should be alive? Do you even think he is?"

It won't be the last time, but her breathing stops.

"I don't want to sound too… disconnected, but I really think that's for you to decide, not me," she finally offers, lips carefully, professionally poised but unable to calm worried eyes. Amelia, with her jaw slightly ajar, turns partially, apparently to look at the blank wall. She's silent long enough to prompt Maggie to speak again. "I don't know how much of his life he will experience, but I can see that he is loved."

Amelia doesn't ask her, exactly what does she mean by "experience". Doesn't scoff, or apologize, or say much of anything at all until she finally looks her in the face: well-intentioned brown eyes and a look like she might understand more than she's saying. She says sorry, which Maggie understands to mean that she realizes it was uncomfortable… not necessarily that she is sorry.

* the third day *

It's evening, and Maggie's turn to change one of those little diapers. Amelia is cross-legged on the corner of her bed closest to the changing table, just watching with casually excellent posture. Something that had been mentioned drifts back to her.

"You live in Boston?" she asks, intrigued. Maggie nods amenably. "How did you come to L.A.?" Her voice is kind.

Maggie is a private person, or at least professional; but there's very little that's private about this situation, so she may as well be forthcoming. "I'm training to become a surgeon and I passed my boards, so I'm waiting for offers. Honestly, I wasn't really sure where I'd like to go, so I thought, well, a warm beach sounds nice for a few weeks." The small smile that accompanies this is humble.

"And you call this a vacation?"

"Well… just out of curiosity, I checked with the local hospitals… to see if there was anything I could help with…."

"Because this is not a vacation I would choose," Amelia attempts a sort of self-deprecating joke, but the words accidentally carry too much weight: not to mention that it leaves Maggie with no viable response. After a few seconds of silence, she says quickly and with intentional weight: "thank you."

When the conversation has been quiet too long, Maggie asks about what Amelia did before her pregnancy leave.

"I was… a neurosurgeon." Amelia sets it out, like some box upon a table, with cruel irony seeping out like some slow, noxious substance unknown to Maggie and frightening.

She's quiet.

She can't compliment her achievement, or express any sort of understanding that Amelia herself hasn't known a thousand times over. When the words come to her, she secretly seizes them for all their vagueness. "I see."

It's Amelia's turn. Like she can't even stop herself from naming the bitterness of it out loud, she says, "I'm a neurosurgeon. And my baby doesn't have a brain."

* the fifth day *

Maggie hears it a few moments before she processes it. Small sounds coming from the master bedroom… different tones, different volumes.

Amelia is singing to her son. So she takes a few steps from the living room to dip into the kitchen, listening carefully to the tune moving down the hallway, and even more quietly through the wall. As she stills against the inside of the doorway, she is surprised to feel herself relaxing, despite the guilt of eavesdropping. Maggie can hear, now, in a tone she'd missed or misunderstood in earlier conversations, something that makes sense.

* the seventh day *

As the living room comes into view, Maggie catches a glimpse of her sitting on the floor, looking diagonally down.

"Amelia? Are—are you okay?"

Amelia looks up at Maggie, into her really, and momentarily, the girl regrets asking. A feeling of being acutely observed expresses itself in her cheeks as they start to warm, until the seated woman seems to make a decision.

"Yes." She says it quietly, looking at Maggie, but firmly, then again. "Yeah. I'm okay."

"Well, I'll sit with you," Maggie says, despite her slight discomfort, which anyhow has passed, replaced by a tiny feeling that she's just been complimented. Amelia pats the rug next to her. "What are you looking at?"

"Hmm?" She looks round fully to face Maggie, then glances away as she remembers. "Oh, uh, there's… this stain on the carpet." She does not elaborate, and it doesn't occur to Maggie until later that she may not have been entirely honest.

"Okay."

"It seems like the rest of the world isn't even out there. But there are preteens going on first dates and people, I don't know, ruining their day by spilling coffee, even now. Does that seem real?"

Maggie tries to keep in mind that she has been living this weeks and months less, but… even she has felt edges haze out. How can there be anything bigger, a universe, even a hemisphere or a continent when there is this dying infant and his mother, scrambling for every moment of his life? "Usually… I'd guess that this is what doesn't feel real. But it does." She nods, seeming surprised.

Some time passes, enough that Maggie has settled in to sit for a while. She's leaning gently against the couch, head tilted in thought, when Amelia shifts her weight toward her and gently sets her head on one slanted shoulder. Maggie turns her head carefully, though something tells her Amelia wouldn't be easily spooked by the motion. And something about the shining bravery of this woman, about the fluid tired strength Maggie can feel in this proximity… well, Margaret Pierce, _Doctor_ Margaret Pierce is _not_ going to think about this any further. She is invested, sharp, and professional. She is going to professionally clasp her employer's hand, cool and elegantly deliberate in its movements, for a few moments to make her own point. And so she does.

* the tenth day *

By now, they're settled into a routine, and they move through their days smoothly. There have been no strange questions for a while, so Amelia must have decided that she can trust her new roommate. They work together with light conversation, some teasing, sometimes full-bellied laughs, but mostly at a warm enough silence.

The light streams in through the living room window, reflecting harshly off the walls, so Maggie keeps her eyes down on the laundry she's folding. Taking a light risk, she decides to ask after the man who never seems to be around. "Does Ryan work at the hospital, too?"

"No, he's not with us."

Oh, okay. "Where is he?"

"He overdosed."

 _Oh_. Her eyebrows knit in worry, concern, regret, sorrow. "I'm so, so sorry, I didn't think—"

"Yeah, me neither," she spools out almost genially, flashing eyes betraying her voice. "I asked him for just one more night with the pills, then to get sober and have kids." She says it with enough spite to confuse Maggie, who sets down the laundry she'd forgotten was in her hands.

"Amelia… it's not your fault, you wanted to get clean."

"He was going to flush what we had left," she says, eyes fixed to hers fierce, and Maggie can't hold her gaze, doesn't know what to do for such pain.

This time, no appropriate words occur to her, leaving her in silence. Eventually Amelia tells her a little more. She might have been able to imagine the rest of the story, but there's this… hard dullness to reality that she couldn't have figured, and has never before heard. Not like this.

"Listen… I'm sorry for making you reveal that to me, I don't know if you wanted to. Would you like me to tell you something I'd rather keep to myself?"

She's still. Confusion widens her eyes. "What?"

"I mean, I've had a pretty easy life, I don't have anything very big to tell you, but… it's kind of big to me, I guess."

In all her years of losing her mouth, being gossiped about, her life strewn across everyone's living room floor, no one has offered to try to even it out. "Oh. Okay?"

"Well, another reason I'm skipping town for a little bit is that I'll probably be stuck in Boston for some while. I'm… I'm in the middle of getting the courts to release information about my birth mother."

She seems to process for a moment, listening intently. "Your birth mother."

"Yes. My parents adopted me, but I don't know who she is. So… I think I'd like to live somewhere else for a while, somewhere outside of Boston, but it's not going to happen yet."

Amelia doesn't have to say thank you. It's all over her face.

* the twelfth day *

Maggie comes around the corner, holding two boxes of similar size. "All right, foggy day measures. Impressionist art, or… puppies?"

"Uh, puppies, duh. C'mon." Amelia starts with a tone like it should be obvious, then changes to a tone significantly more judgmental: "Puzzles? Really?"

But they dump the box on the ground, some feet away from the baby, who is lying on a lovingly arranged blanket where he moves his little fists and does something like yawning with his little mouth. Before long, they're both laying on their stomachs in comfortable quiet, placing pieces together. Occasionally Amelia will turn her head for a while, and Maggie will steal glances at the absolutely smitten look on her face: a tight forehead and soft eyes for her son.

Of course, they watch him like hawks, but he does not place any puzzle pieces in his mouth. There is nothing for him to learn from such an action.

Eventually there is one small and another larger gap in the puzzle, where all the potential pieces are the same colors. Amelia lets out a sigh, and then looks up with a glint in her eye. She smiles at Maggie suspiciously. "You've just been waiting to pull out these puzzles, haven't you? Nerd," she adds teasingly.

Maggie side-eyes her, but there's a hint of pink in her cheeks if you look closely enough, which Amelia does. But she doesn't push it; she just smiles, like she's waiting for an answer.

"I like puzzles," she relents, then relaxes. "All kinds, really."

"So you're a surgical resident from Boston, you're looking for your birth mother and you like puzzles. You like putting things together?" Maggie blinks, confused. Sure, but it's certainly not something she considers central to herself. Though… maybe it is, if these things do have it in common? "Just trying to figure you out a little. You're something of a puzzle yourself," the way she says it, a younger Maggie might have felt she was being made fun of, but there's warmth in the amused smile playing on one corner of her mouth.

Maggie looks down at the assortment of Great Dane puppies, though she feels eyes on her for a few more moments. She focuses on placing pieces. Soon enough, her cheeks start to cool, and a few minutes later she speaks.

"Hey, if the weather is better tomorrow, maybe we could take him to the park, or to the museum or something?"

Amelia looks at her for a strangely long time. "Yeah, I think that's a good idea."

* the fifteenth day *

Their afternoon at the park had been nice, with Amelia brightening a bit under the sunlight and the baby reacting to the breeze, something she couldn't seem to take her eyes off of… except to look around at the trees and dogs and kids on scooters while talking to him about them in a low, happy voice.

Now, they're packed with sandwiches and a diaper bag, having traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art. Now, they exit the car, squinting up at the strangely shaped red and glass building.

"You sure about bringing a blind infant to a museum?" Amelia asks.

"No."

"Okay."

The special exhibit is called _Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void 1949-1962_. It's about postwar experimentations with disrupting the traditionally two-dimensional plane of canvas, or so some words on the wall say. Canvases are ripped, burned, painted roughly, in some abstract bullshit that Maggie thinks Amelia actually likes, even if she would never admit it. She doesn't quite catch most of what she tells her son about the artworks, but for all her slights about the pretentiousness of museums, she seems to get these. The ones that border into sculpture, with objects fused into them. Occasionally they will catch each other's eye, amused by strangers who look irritated by the child and the talking.

Maggie's been looking at one in particular, a copper-green canvas almost as tall as she is, with about seventeen slashes in it along the bottom.

"Let's see what this fine young woman has to say. _Doctor_ Pierce, could you enlighten us to the nature of this work?"

The _so-tired-of-you-girl_ smile that slips onto her face is Amelia's favorite. She leans in, clearly indulging in this corny mess for the baby, of course. "… Somebody was fucking pissed." It's the oldest joke in the book, but they can't help laughing about swearing in front of an infant. After glares, they settle down and part paths.

So they manage just over 30 minutes in the cordoned-off sequence of rooms before he starts crying. Maggie looks to Amelia immediately from across the room. Of course, so does everyone else. The startled look on Amelia's face makes Maggie giggle, though, so then some onlookers look towards her, while one sympathetic woman starts looking concerned, having realized that his crying is somehow quite strange.

Maggie gestures, and they haul out of there. By the time they open the doors and the breeze hits them, they're laughing enough for it to echo through the large entrance hall, because there is something hilarious about lasting half an hour in a museum before being glared out.

"Did you see the old lady, with the—the pearls? God, I thought she wanted us to _die_."

"Oh, god, yes, and that man with the, the Irish kind of cap?" She nods earnestly, before laughing so hard that she causes her to laugh, too.

The baby, who had quieted, starts fussing again, so Amelia wanders with him to the nearest bench in the outdoor courtyard, light sand-colored stones contrasting with the red of the building and deep green of the plants. Maggie sits next to her. They might as well have their sandwiches now, so she pulls them out and offers one to Amelia, who takes it, but then suddenly looks like sandwiches are out of any realm she can grasp.

Somehow, suddenly, the mood has changed. Maggie has learned by now that there's almost no use in politely pretending not to notice. "What's up?"

She seems to quickly say several sentences in her mind, only to continue out loud with, "But I should have had this idea. I should have wanted him to be in as much of the world as he could."

Ah. So that's what that look from the other day had been about.

"Amelia… you're in survival mode." She resets her jaw. It's the only clue, but it means she's listening. "It's not your fault. It's biological. You want the best for him, of course you do, it's just that to you, right now, that means survival above all else." She says nothing, but she seems to agree. "Hey, Amelia?" She nods twice, open to the question. "Your best is enough. I'll drive, okay?"

* the sixteenth day *

When Amelia enters the living room, it's flooded with golden light from the evening, but no: it's turning gray, and soon, only a mist of light will trail through the windows.

So when she quietly pauses, watching Maggie gently twist and do a sort of sway with her son securely in one arm, her right hand pulling his blanket up to his chin… adjusting his little hat just so… and touching one fingertip to a soft cheek, she sees it. And looking at her face, God, it must be true, the way she looks comfortable. How Amelia feels at ease, looking at them.

The way Amelia feels something too joyful to be a sob expanding in her chest to her throat. _You love him, too_.

* the seventeenth day *

Addison and Charlotte seem to have swept some unsuspecting store for every party decoration marked "1" ever devised. Plates, napkins, cups, utensils, and cheap tablecloths decorated in dinosaurs and princess crowns and zoo animals in hues just brighter than pastel of every color are on every surface in Addison's house, and plenty of her beachside deck, while streamers, party hats, and confetti cover any gaps.

He's turning one month today.

Addison's home is beautiful, even covered in paper decorations of no consistent color scheme. A kitchen and a stairway meet an open room next to the ocean, via a deck that touches the clean sand of the beach. From almost anywhere inside, she can turn to see waves. It's completely understandable that Amelia lived here for a while, and she plans to state this observation aloud later.

Amelia has a certain blush in her cheeks, and a pleasant roundness too, with a small smile like she still can't quite believe it, but she's playing along for as long as she can get. It's slightly uneasy composure, suited to the surreal event.

Maggie allows herself to think it just once, to face the thought and then ignore it. It's a genuine celebration, though everyone is aware that soon, this little child is going to die.

It wouldn't require any particular skill in reading people to see that this idea permeates the space, knowingly or not, the way Addison has pity in her eyes, and the way Violet is excessively calming, but the children seem unaware. This is the day that Maggie meets the little boy, Mason, who has a maturity about him that she thinks it best not to inquire into today, and the quiet one, Lucas. And then there's little Henry.

It's terrible to think, but it's almost as if she had forgotten what average babies are typically like. The adults take pictures of the children with the birthday boy, and setting them next to each other makes the difference even more shocking. In fairness, Henry is older, but he watches. And his smiles are in response to what's going on. Maggie looks to Amelia to read her face, as is habit by now, and she can see that Amelia sees it too. But she is smiling at her little boy. It occurs to her how this does not seem pitiable, or at all unexpected, as she can sometimes come across. She can see how Amelia lives boldly, with her whole heart even when life is strange. Just then, she looks up, and around for Maggie, and there's nothing inhibiting the smile she gives.

Later, Maggie finds herself in a conversation that turns out to require very little of her own conversing.

"So how are you finding them?" Charlotte asks, gesturing to mother and child. "She's not giving you too much trouble?"

"No, no," Maggie laughs politely, softly. "She's amazing, really."

Charlotte watches her for a moment, warmth burning in her eyes, before she turns slightly with her wine towards the woman in question. "That she is."

"Who's what?" Addison says in her kind of deep voice, joining them.

"Maggie here was just saying what a pain in the ass our Amelia is," Charlotte starts dryly. Maggie starts protesting, but Charlotte laughs, and Addison smirks, her eyes narrowing amusedly as she takes a sip of red wine. "Really, though, I'm jealous." She leans in conspiratorially. "The Amelia I know can be difficult. But she's got a great heart." Maggie is paused by the trueness of these words, how she has seen it over and over, and also by the open honesty, which she suspects does not come easily to this woman.

Addison sobers slightly and says, "Thank you," and Maggie, again, finds it hard to look up. Perhaps to lighten the mood, Charlotte makes a comment about how, confidentially, she knows she's the prettiest person they interviewed, right?

Out of nowhere, Amelia leans in and with a friendly smirk, she joins in, "I know, right? She is so gorgeous."

Maggie forces herself to look away, to stop searching her face like no one had ever complimented her before, and tries to smile _normally_. She certainly tries to hush the hopeful little flare in her chest. And some softer part of her quietly tries to take the power out of the very straight way she'd said it.

Later, the two of them end up on the deck, looking out on the beach. It's just after the sun has set, so there's still plenty of light, but it'll quickly turn from pink to grey-blue.

Amelia leans in with a teasing smile, and says lowly, "you've been so _professional_ today," prompting Maggie to turn slightly away toward the ocean view while side-eyeing her, but with an unpreventable little touch of a smile.

"It's been a lovely party," she chooses to respond, sipping from a glass. She relents, ignoring her smirk. "This house is gorgeous, right?"

"Oh my god, I know."

"You know, I totally get you living here," she says.

"Oh, yeah, that was fun, waving to Addie and Sam in the mornings, like I know what you were up to!" She's quiet for a moment, remembering something. "Hey, you know? Maybe we should bring him to the water."

 _That's probably not a good idea. It's getting dark. I don't know. Do you think he'll be okay?_ But she can feel a small smile moving onto her lips.

A moment later, they're walking slowly on the sand, losing light fast. Amelia is speaking quietly, talking about the sand and what's in it and what the waves look like and sound like. Of the places they've taken him lately, this is the one where Maggie's heart feels biggest listening to them. They get to the water line just as the ocean water begins to recede, rushing in what seems like layers. Maggie helps untie the little Converse shoes and peel off the little baby socks, revealing tiny toes and flat soles. Amelia carefully sets these just gently on the sand, kneeling with her hands under his armpits. "That's the wet sand, it's hard now but it'll get softer soon."

White foam encircles his tiny feet, and he starts making the squeak noises but Amelia has already swept him up and wrapped him into her arms, laughing and praising him, but Maggie catches how her eyes water. Maggie looks back towards the house, and sees that her friends are watching from the deck.


	2. two

* the eighteenth day *

In the morning, Amelia and her son are settled in the kitchen, with a steaming mug in her hands, when Maggie steps quietly in in bare feet and an oversized sweatshirt that drapes over her palms. She holds the edge of the sleeve when she raises her arm to cover a yawn while she starts putting breakfast together. She has a sleepy smile for Amelia, and she asks small, nice questions about the boy. Amelia sits with him and watches her. She finds herself deliberately looking away once or twice, like when she, adorably, touches her forehead after dropping a fork, or when she's finally sitting and resting her weight on a propped elbow, chin in her hand as she stirs her coffee, or when she side-eyes her but smiles in response to something.

It's nice, is all. Nice that they get along, and that she's easy to live with.

That evening, Maggie calls 911.

She hears Amelia screaming from the other room, _He's not breathing he's not breathing he's not breathing_. Maggie discovers quickly that in fact he could breathe, but he was struggling enough to might as well not be. The sight, however, of the fitfully dying child and devastated mother was nothing she could have prepared for.

Charlotte King sends an entire cavalry to retrieve them. Maggie observes this all, the slow ride to the hospital and being greeted with a team, as though from through a window, unable to grasp the terror of the situation, or perhaps stricken with it.

Amelia, however, is not new to the horror of death. She feels quite intensely every second of passing traffic, every strangled breath her baby takes, every horrible feeling that settles upon her. The doubt in Charlotte's grimace, the exceeding professionalism of his doctors. Every shard of the awfulness that surrounds her tiny family.

She and Charlotte disappear into double doors for certain conversations, leaving Maggie to wait.

Around 10 P.M., Amelia and Charlotte walk back into the waiting room, to find Maggie sitting primly, waiting for news. She jumps up, face quietly pleading for an update, and Amelia starts to feel guilty... like it was an oversight not to invite her sooner.

Finally, they're released to go home. They all understand the inevitability of the situation, and the child is stable enough to go home in a specialized incubator. Once they get there, with Charlotte and Cooper and Sam, Maggie crosses from room to room over and over, gathering this for dinner or drinks or moving that to make space for the incubator. Amelia, of course, has one hand in the glass hole, to keep contact with his hand or foot or forehead. Cooper follows Maggie, trying to help, too antsy to sit still. One by one, as Amelia begins to relax and even leave the incubator, they leave her to her space. It's late when Charlotte goes.

Maggie finds it difficult to settle for the night, even though she can feel tiredness pulling her shoulders down.

It is when she enters the dark kitchen yet another time that night that she spots the irregularity.

"Amelia," she whispers sharply, out of fright and relief at her familiarity. Just a sliver of one cheek is illuminated, nothing that makes any sense. The room is silent, but warm with a nervous presence. Maggie can't breathe, trying to make her eyes see the woman's face. There's a curious illusion as the shadow of her head tilts, and the light hits just a corner of her mouth now. Despite the cover of darkness, Maggie thinks she has never been more present with another person, more afraid and desperate for them to speak.

A tense moment passes, where Amelia's outwardly very still. She exhales. And she whispers out into the dark kitchen. "I was going to donate his organs."

It is quiet, as if Maggie has inhaled the gravity of this thought, and she takes a moment to set it gently within herself before she speaks. "What happened?"

"He went into respiratory distress. I made my friends save him, after I had asked them to put themselves on the line for me." She tries not to linger too long, or let it envelop her, the memory of suddenly sobbing the two words _save him_ over and over, and definitely not crying, _save him for me, Addie_. Nothing can stop her from remembering her heart absolutely, excruciatingly collapsing as her son was pulled out of her arms and away from her sight.

"They sound like good friends."

Every day this feeling wells up, ugly as the first time. For the fourth time that day, despite valiant efforts to suppress it, terror seeps cold into hands, and sickly premature grief creeps hot into her throat. "I… am terrified… all the time. I'm not ready. I'm not ready."

And then, a whisper.

"I called him my unicorn baby."

"What does that mean?"

She doesn't answer. A few seconds late, when Maggie realizes why, she finally closes the distance between them and lightly puts her thumb to the little glimmer on her cheek. Here, she can see Amelia.

Amelia, who searches for something in her, in the tautness of her lips or in the particular bend of her eyebrows. But Maggie clumsily decides to put her lips, warm, to the slightly hot trail on her cold cheek, sending a little invisible pink through the dark. As she pulls away, the saltwater adheres to her mouth scarcely a sliver of a second longer than skin does. It's only a moment later that Amelia throws her arms around Maggie's neck, bringing cheekbones close to ears and chins close to wrists. And then she feels Maggie slip her hands across hipbones to clasp loosely at her lower back. Yes, there had only been the one outside-of-professional moment, the little cheek kiss.

But no, this is genuine and warm… this is honest, too.

Amelia has been denied most answers. It is a kindness, then, that this small moment isn't a question.

* the twentieth day *

The world slows to a still when Maggie pulls around the corner and sees the dark van, marked in yellow on the sides. She pulls the gearshift into park. Sits just as still as the universe feels in the driver's seat for a moment. Then she reaches for the two bags of groceries before heading inside, knowing that he has died.

The red-haired friend looks like she's seen a ghost, and she may well have, because Maggie cannot imagine that anyone has ever looked like this, sobbing deep and quiet.

"It just happened," one of them says quietly to her. Violet. That's her name. "Maybe twenty minutes." Maggie finds it impossible to tear her eyes away from the almost unrecognizable woman seated upon the ground before her.

Charlotte is kneeling before her, hands open like she would touch her if she might not get pushed away. "Amelia. Amelia, he's gone. You can't be there for him now."

His body still is upon the floor. A man in a uniform stands a slight distance away, obviously here to retrieve it.

"What happened?" Maggie thinks aloud, in a whisper.

"Stopped breathing."

"Amelia. I love you. We love you." Charlotte's voice breaks, and she tries twice to blink away tears. "Let us take him."

It takes a few more minutes, by which time Amelia becomes silent, her arms wrapped around her knees. The man kneels to collect the body, and she watches him bitterly the entire time. Addison moves to the kitchen, to make all sorts of calls, while Charlotte sits next to Amelia. Once the man steps away, Maggie can no longer bear waiting. She sits to her right, and tentatively reaches one hand out while murmuring her name. Amelia's left hand, wrapped around to the right around her leg, opens then closes tightly around Maggie's. She can only look at the elegant hollows and lines of her metacarpal bones, defined by her tight grip.

Her friends, family really, arrive by ones and twos, and stay until long after midnight. They make coffee; sit beside her, murmur love into her ear.

Around two A.M., Maggie remembers the laundry, and stifles a sigh. The sheets aren't even on the beds, so she quietly retreats to do this one small favor for a grieving mother.

As it turns out, the sheets don't quite fit Amelia's queen bed, and quite stubbornly refuse to stick to more than three corners, no matter which she tries to do last. It's not ideal, and a little improper, but she finally tries stretching the sheet as much as possible without undoing any of three corners; kneeling on the bed; and rolling the remaining fabric over the bottom right corner. In celebration, she slumps for a moment, fingers still curled under the mattress.

What Maggie only knows to be one moment later, she wakes to find Amelia, with no trace of any smirk she'd expect on a regular day, carrying an armful of blankets to the bed.

"I'm so sorry, I was trying to make your bed, the sheets wouldn't… I'll get out of here," Maggie starts tiredly, a little worriedly, sitting up.

Amelia dumps the armful of blankets, and one covers Maggie's knee. "It's okay. Stay."

And her face is so, so _open_ , and she looks so _young_ , and it's the middle of the night. She should go. She should probably have the decency to look away from such open grieving, but instead she reaches out a hand, to gently welcome Amelia to the second star from the right. They grab fistfuls of blankets, and the pillows off the nightstand. Maggie settles face-up, but it's not long before she shifts, turning toward Amelia. And again, takes her hand. A minute later, Amelia turns just her head, looking at the now-familiar shape of her mouth, bent in concern, but also… something reassuring in her eyes. Some of her own sorrow, reflected.

"Goodnight, Amelia," Maggie whispers. She doesn't respond, but it's all right. She intends to stay up with her, but it's been the longest day, and her eyes and heart are too heavy to keep open much longer. And she has Amelia's hand in hers, so she's still there with her, which she lets her know by occasionally running her thumb along rough knuckles… until she falls right asleep.

Maggie doesn't know, then, when Amelia lets the memory of a feeling float through her mind. What it used to feel like, to be completely painless, in bed with a man she loved or in a car, barely watching streets change. Or even what it used to be like to notice her limbs had become frighteningly still, and requesting her fingertips to just twitch, and waiting… but mostly just so, so unaware of anything else discontenting about the world. Maggie doesn't know when she starts really, really missing Ryan. And then, duller but deeper, really missing her dad. Sometimes it seems that all roads lead there, but no… now, they lead to her son.

* the next day *

When Maggie wakes up, she has to contend with guilt. Here in bed with Amelia, who is wrapped around her, one hand curved on her waist, head warm against her chest, she chooses to let irritation cover every other feeling threatening to surface, threatening to remind her—no, back to cuddling. It's just not her thing. So then she has to reflect on the selfishness of being irritated with a woman who just lost her baby.

Instead, actually, she decides to gingerly get up. She quietly exits the room, slowly closes the door behind her, and heads into the kitchen. Where she finds Charlotte pouring coffee.

"Hi," she says politely, confusedly.

"Stayed the night. Just in case Amelia… needed anything," she trails off, giving Maggie the distinct feeling that she'd had something quite more specific in mind.

"Oh. Um, there's some yogurt…"

"I'm alright, thank you," she responds, the picture of etiquette. She continues typing emails on her phone as Maggie helps herself to some breakfast.

Not long after Amelia wakes, she and Charlotte leave for a meeting. Maggie continues to sit for a moment, and considers something. Then she returns to the guest bedroom, and packs her things.

She finishes quickly, having just done the laundry yesterday, and not having packed very much stuff to begin with. It all fits back into the one small suitcase and duffel bag, which she places by the door, then returns to the kitchen to write a note. It takes her much too long. After a long, quiet sigh, she takes in the living room once more, and she leaves.

 _Amelia,_

 _I didn't want to leave without saying goodbye, thank you, and I'm sorry. Call me for anything._

 _Maggie._

* three days later *

Maggie arrives alone to the funeral.

It's in a church that's little but tall, made of dark wood and with a few stained glass windows along the sides, so it's old. It feels almost like a trick, to be surrounded by people openly sorrowful in the same way that she has carried for weeks, but no, not the same… now it's like the end of an exhalation, somehow. In any case, she sits in a pew behind most of Amelia's friends.

There are a few songs, led by what must be two freshman girls, and a reading or two. Addison speaks. Maggie only remembers a line like, "While the honeybee is temporary, so too is the mountain..."

Amelia walks out halfway through.

Most people reconvene at Addison's house after the service. A little more than an hour in, Maggie has the chance to express her condolences. They've both ended up on the deck, glasses in hand. "Amelia, I'm so sorry for your loss. You know I was really very fond of him."

The understatement reveals something that Amelia catches. "What's going on?" She shakes her head slightly, making a gesture with her hand like it's nothing, not right now. "Maggie."

Now she quietly sighs. "I'm going back to Boston."

"Oh. How long have you known?"

"A few days."

She nods slowly. "You got the offer."

"Yes." It's something close to sympathetic.

"When?" she asks, looking like something just doesn't quite make sense.

"Tomorrow. Of course." The slight, derisive breath of laughter successfully hides how, momentarily, tears well.

She can't bring herself to say congratulations. Maggie thinks she can assume it, since she's been supportive before. "Thank you for your service." Maggie is startled at the idea that she is implying she's only been an employee, and shocked that she expected any different. She gathers herself.

Thanks Amelia.

Does not touch her, and leaves.

* a year and a few months later *

Amelia sits in the armchair she'd snagged at this trendy/cozy coffee shop, and finally pulls out her phone again.

 _Hi Amelia, I'm going to be in LA the 6th-10th and I was wondering if you'd like to grab coffee or something. Let me know._

See, yeah, it had been her idea, and the time and day they'd settled on was right, too. Even the little bubble of nerves she had looking at the message was the same. Well, fuck it. If she wasn't going to make it, at least her drink had turned out to be good.

Not quite ten minutes later, Amelia doesn't notice Maggie walk in, being too busy reading whatever hipster posters they'd stuck on the wall.

Maggie scans the place, locating Amelia along the back wall in seconds, and finally feels exasperated relief at having found the right damn café. She takes a breath and starts to make her way to the wall, and just a moment later Amelia spots her and positively beams.

 _Oh._ How beautiful she is with a little more peace. Her smile comes easily, and her eyes seem warm. It's breathtaking and heartbreaking in too many ways to count right now, so Maggie quickly gathers her own heart up and smiles back a real smile as she sits down.

There's a silence for a few moments as they sit there, both unsure what to say exactly. "Um, so is there a good drink here?" Maggie asks, and after a few exchanged lines she gets up to order her coffee. Amelia waits with hers, which is getting cold, again.

It's not quite comfortable, yet. They're both acting overly friendly, like girls who aren't quite friends but who act like it out of convenience.

Maggie returns, setting her purse on the floor next to her feet, and with her comes a sense of seriousness about meeting again.

"I missed you, sometimes."

"We lived together for three weeks. I hardly know you," Amelia scoffs, bringing her mug down to the table, two fingers looped through the handle and with her elbow stuck out at an angle to balance it. Maggie says nothing, but the look on her face says enough for Amelia to respond. It's something like _I feel like I know you_ , or _I knew you at a terrible and beautiful time in your life_ , or probably _but I knew your son_. She concedes. "Alright."

"How are you, Amelia?" That look, from other people, would be unbearable. Pitying. From her, it is twilight. She, too, knows what the day has seen.

"I'm sober." It comes out deep and gravelly. "Have been since." Her jaw slides to the side in reflection. Maggie nods, eyes filling with proud admiration.

"I heard you're back in surgery."

Amelia nods, with a little more ease, and a slow flood of pride. "Yeah, I am. And you?"

"Yeah, they made me a fellow, actually."

"What are you anyway, like sixteen?" Amelia prods skeptically, after she surprisingly loudly exclaims her congratulations, but then her eyes warm as she smiles at Maggie, who then shakes her head, pretending not to dignify that with a response. "That's awesome," she sincerely happily adds, lifting her mug, which Maggie touches hers to.

The two lattes Maggie ordered, one to replace Amelia's cold dregs, arrive. Amelia skips the entire dance of _oh you shouldn't have_ and goes straight to "Thanks."

As they continue to talk, Maggie notices gradually how Amelia no longer seems to need the previous brand of intimacy… perhaps she needs something different this time, something more open, if that's any way to describe it. "So," she starts, looking down at the rim of her mug, "is there anyone in your life?" She deliberately looks up at the end, hoping to hide her thoughts.

"Yeah, there's a guy." Now Amelia looks down at her palms, which are momentarily unclasped from her mug. "His name is James."

She nods slowly, not unkindly. "What's he like?"

"He's smart. Runs our ER. Really a gentleman."

"Yeah?" Maggie has to smile and laugh a little at that. Amelia looks up at her brightly, then laughs a little too. "Is it serious?"

"I don't know. Maybe." She looks genuinely unsure, but there's a little smile that gives it away. It is.

"Well, good for you." She manages to say it sincerely, even though it's a difficult phrase to pass as not sarcastic even at the best of times. Amelia looks at her for a few long, quiet moments, and then looks down at her palms again.

"I've actually been thinking about visiting Seattle. You know, my brother and his wife are there."

She asks her how they're doing. Just fine, as usual. This isn't the first time that Maggie has gotten the impression that Amelia could be bitterer than she is about how easily her family seems to do well, but the thought passes as the question is turned around on her.

"What about you?" Her voice, low and almost nervously sincere, now rises to her usual amicable level. "You seeing anyone?"

It's only fair for her to ask, since Maggie has asked Amelia to expose herself almost the whole time, but she still ignores the second question. "They're going to tell me who my birth mother is. I mean, it's not for sure, but she's deceased, so my lawyer thinks it'll happen."

Amelia just nods, not pretending to know what to say.

A barista, after a few hours, has to come and notify the pair that the place is closing in 15 minutes. They dutifully collect their things, and leave a tip.

"Well, I guess, see you when I see you," Amelia says, as they slowly step towards the exit.

"Seriously," she agrees easily, and then gets more serious while holding the door open for them to leave through. "This was really nice."

They turn to face each other for a moment in the cool night air, the lights of the street casting odd shadows. "Well, got to go," Amelia says awkwardly, with a little awkward wave, before putting her hands in her pockets and turning to go.

"Amelia?" Maggie asks, and Amelia turns, slow at first, to catch her eye for the last time. The words come genuinely, filling her chest, and end with a little nod. "You look beautiful."

Face flushing from the compliment and the unmistakable intent behind it, Amelia's mind supplies only one, jointed thought. _Say something. Make her stay._ So she does something like a single nod, and takes the few steps between her and the woman she'd lived with.

Amelia from a lifetime ago, she would have just kissed her, but this Amelia is consumed by the work it's taken for this woman to be here with her. Or maybe it's the fact that she's leaving again, or something along any of those lines. Maybe she's just timid now.

Sleeves just a little too long, and fingers closed over the edges caught in her palms, Amelia wraps Maggie into her arms once more, this time slow and cautious. Then she seems to find herself, her usual tenacity, and lets her wrists retreat slightly as she whispers by Maggie's ear, then brings her lips to one smooth, beautiful brown cheek.

"I should have called you," she adds, pretending it's just the cold wind making her eyes water this little bit.

Maggie searches Amelia's expression, her own all heart and anxiety. "So call me, then."

a/n: For all intents and purposes, this is where the story ends. The next chapter is an optional sort of extended epilogue, sort of just because I accidentally set myself up so that I could do it. I'm really curious to know what you guys think of the story, if it's compelling, but if you have thoughts about the next part too, tell me.


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